unakaczynski Reviews

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008 Video)

Absolute Garbage in Every Conceivable Way

[1/10 · 28 September 2009]

**WARNING: REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!**

Essentially, this film's plot is a broken mess. Let's just call it a flat-out stupid version of the first film where everything that was done right before is now done horribly, horribly wrong. The only "new" thing for this film is the introduction of the "super bug" that apparently controls all the bugs, and the haphazard manner in which it ultimately becomes hunted. I should tell you that I sighed heavily as I wrote this paragraph. Worst of all, for no real apparent reason, it has even hammier and fistier subplot concerning religion.

The Good:

-Nothing.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

-There is brief, though nonsensical nudity that's always entertaining.

-Final super-bug alien is almost cool in a Lovecraftian manner, but is also quite ridiculous.

-The brief gore effects are generally competent.

The Bad:

-First off, the writing gives new breadth to the term "ham-fisted" with some of the worst dialog imaginable. It's unrealistic, it's forced, and pathetic. Take some of the worst Star Wars dialog you've ever heard and multiply it by a thousand and you have the best dialog in this film.

-Laughable technology. For such a futuristic film, the technology in use still seems like it came from the 1980's.

-Inexcusable special effects. This is the third feature-length installment in this series and the special effects shouldn't be getting worse over time.

-Meandering nonsensical plot that is a broken mess through and through. Feels like plots were written for three different films and then compressed together in an unnatural manner to create this mess. Even when the film attempts to tie them altogether, it ends up falling flat on it's face with new characters introduced an incredible TWO-THIRDS of the way into the film.

• This future media in this film is extremely obnoxious.

-The "Marauder" suits suck. Let me just say that for the whopping three minutes that they appear in the film, they failed to do it any justice. The battle sequence is dull, the robots are overly rigid, and it's pretty much the lamest thing you could ever see in a film.

-There appears to be some retarded war protesting going on in this film pertaining to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Worse, and don't quote me on this, but it seems like they're referring to the "bugs" as "Arachnis" and damn if that doesn't sound like an awful play on words to illicit the term "Iraqi."

-Lame, overall, view of anything military. Unrealistic portrayal of individuals and ranks.

-There are a few points of subplot that show up and are cast off rather quickly or ignored outright.

-The atmosphere is severely lacking. This is largely due to the nonsensical and overly hustled manner in which the plot progresses. Sequences simply run through far too quickly to ever build much actual atmosphere.

-The pacing is atrocious. The first act squeals by, attempting to cram far too much into a claustrophobic garbage dump of barely perceptible information. This is made all the worse by the downright awful dialog. Old friendships are essentially revisited, rediscovered, and betrayed all in a matter of a few on screen minutes.

-The first act ends without closure or explanation.

-The music ranges from lackluster, totally average sci-fi/action tunes to generally being a major nuisance. Even the stuff meant to be tongue-in-cheek bad ends up being just plain old bad. Some of it is inappropriately annoying.

The Ugly:

-Forced religious propagandizing bogs the film down and totally ruins it. Everyone who is "anti-religious" is seen as some kind of overbearingly evil lunatic ass-hole, including, and I'm not kidding, the heroine. There are even ironic smacks that certain religious beliefs can be "wrong." Yet, the overarching theme of the film seems to be about the "incredible healing power of faith."

-Every single character sucks and lacks any kind of development.

-When characters die, you don't care. You can't. In fact, there were some characters introduced early on in the film, and I can't even pinpoint the moment in the film when they either died or vanished.

• *SPOILER ALERT* This film ends, I kid you not, with Jolene Blalock and another girl actually praying to God to help them survive all the "bugs," and all the while we end up bombarded with face-palm worthy religious iconography.

• On the one hand, the franchise appeals to science fiction fans with a taste for the old ultra-violence in their entertainment, and on the other hand, it's heavily geared towards Christians. The Jesusy overtones will only serve to annoy most ardent sci-fi fans, and the routine violence and general profanity would tend to be a turn-off to religious types. What the hell is going on here?

• Throughout the entire film, there is little more than a "been there, done that" feel to absolutely all of the action, with the exception that it's all grossly less entertaining than the previous films.

-Ridiculous views of the government system and of war protesters. Conversely, while the government is viewed as a mean old freedom-gobbling team of tyrants, it's also seen as working against odds to maintain peace, protect the people, and inspire patriotism.

-For a film which purports (or rather, attempts to) such a positive message in the finale, the majority of the film is awash in negativity and derision. Instead of countering all the negativity throughout the story, the brow-beating religious sentiment ends up insulting the viewer rather than saving the film.

-Probably one of the most trite, cliché, ham-fisted, piles of crap I've ever seen. No new ideas are expressed and no, one new super-bug and mechas don't count. It's completely a thoughtless action entertainment failure.

Not recommended to anyone, ever.

1/10

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Better than the first film, at least.

[6/10 · 4 June 2008]

SPOILERS MARKED WITH "***"

Brief rundown edited from full review which can be found here: http://www.residenthazard.com/essays_avp-R.htm

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--With the last film, I found barely any quality moments which earned a positive point. One of those was the special effects with a disclaimer: The special effects were damn near perfect from the very beginning of either Alien or Predator series—so they should still be awesome today. And that's true. The effects of the Aliens and Predators are awesome, the designs are fairly standard, though good. And for the most part, even the CG effects are exceptionally well done.

--Yes, it earns that "R" rating. For one, the first two people infected with aliens are a little kid and his Dad who are out hunting. There is "adult language," plenty of violence and gore.

--Heavily borrows the music from previous films (especially Predator), and it still sounds good.

--Strong female lead is still no Ripley, but she's much more likable than that awful woman from the previous AvP film.

--Stupid, nonsensical plot elements kept to a minimum. For instance, the characters who would be a burden on the heroic characters tend not to last very long.

--Human characters are better and typically more likable than in the first AvP film.

--Whereas the last movie totally failed to give us the signature shocks and gore of these two franchises, this film does not fail. We see a couple heads explode, inner-mouths of aliens smashing people's heads, chest-bursting surprises, and acid blood burning the hell out of some people.

--There is only one real Predator in the film and a plethora of aliens. This actually worked in the benefit of the film because we finally got some expansive story on the Predator species that doesn't go out and contradict some things that we already know. This one lone Predator seems to be playing as a one-man clean-up crew to erase any evidence of either Aliens or Predators on the planet. Rather than having the sometimes ridiculous nature of the previous film where there were just seemingly random shots of Aliens and Predators fighting each other, we had the lone hunter again—not really seen since the first Predator film. This, for me, was probably the most enjoyable part of the film overall.

--Queen Predalien actually looks pretty cool.

--Much improved horror atmosphere, but somewhat average cinematography overall.

--Remember in the previous AvP film where the Predator decided he was going to team up with the "heroic female lead?" And he gave her a laughably stupid weapon and ridiculous "shield" which was little more than just an alien head? Yeah, nothing quite that stupid going on in this film.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Usually, when a film late in a series pays homage to previous films, it's pretty cool. Here, it felt a little over-obvious. "Get to the chopper!" is yelled, the Predator removes his mask in a rather cliché manner (exactly duplicated from the first film), and a couple other moments.

--Acting pitches and wanes in quality. It's never perfect, but typically it's pretty good. There are moments where it's just average for a film of this nature "to carry the story until the movie gets gory."

--Burgeoning love story between two of the main characters is pretty weak.

--Follows somewhat typical horror-action film format where we are introduced to a bunch of seemingly random characters who all end up working together for a common goal in the end. Hey, at least the horror elements are back.

--Character development is typically pretty light—which is par for the course of this type of film. Better than the last film which had next to none.

--Predator under-utilizes his cloaking ability. While it makes sense for us moviegoers to see him, logically for his character, I'd have expected him to use it more.

--Action hero moments a la the Predator series are still here.

--Story picks up right after the dreadful first film.

--Occasionally bland or cliché dialog. --The previous film ran at a bare minimum 84 minutes—this one at least fills the time with a more workable story at about an hour and forty minutes.

The Bad:

-- *** There is some real plot confusion at an unfortunate key moment in the film: The National Guard is called in to help the people in this town, yet, it seems the information on the Aliens creeping around is yet unknown. So, this is to aid a town whose only power station was completely destroyed. Yet they all have guns drawn, and weapons a bit more "automatic" and powerful than you'd expect. It almost seems as though the government is aware of the "infestation," but clear links aren't easily made.

-- *** A bizarre new development was spawned with this film—and maybe it's intended to be a side-effect of the Queen also being the Predalien, I don't know, but she seems to have cut out the middle man. She moves in to a victim's face, spreads the Predator-like appendages, then plants that inner mouth inside the mouth of a human—and lo and behold, she's playing the role of an instant-face-hugger. While it helped speed the action along, it violates some of the "known rules" of Aliens.

--Aliens were still born and grown to adulthood a bit too quickly.

--Strange occurrence of a large spaceship crashing in the mountains in the US and pretty much no one in the nearby small town hearing it. Perhaps this relates back to the explanation of why the military took such serious notice—but then, this whole part of the film could've used a lot more explanation all around.

Final Score: 6/10

www.ResidentHazard.com

Born for Hell (1976)

Boring for Hell is more like it

[4/10 · 31 May 2008]

Naked Massacre (as it was titled when I viewed Born for Hell) is a thriller from the 70's which dances around not knowing whether it's horror or exploitation. Essentially, it's too weak to be true exploitation (like I Spit on Your Grave), and lacks the proper atmosphere to make a real horror film. So, it's more like a murderous thriller or a slasher film without the usual flair or atmosphere of either said genre.

This film follows an American Vietnam vet fresh from deployment who has been plunked down in England and is looking for a way to get home. Why didn't the Army send him to his actual home? Hey, if character development was a big deal here, we'd probably know the answer. Well, eventually, our poor and generally homeless war vet ends up stalking and killing a house full of nurses and/or nursing students. He kills them in boring ways like stabbing or strangling—the hallmarks of the movie killer-man, right? The interesting part of this comes from the fact that he forces a lot of the girls to be naked before he kills, humiliates, or slightly tortures them. He forces one to perform oral sex on another with little success. I figured the title (again, it was Naked Massacre when I viewed it) was just to get some attention and that there was likely not much nudity. There actually was a decent amount of nudity—not a ton, but a bit more than I expected. Remember though, I expected very little because films of this nature from the 70's (60's and 80's, too) often had wildly misleading titles that didn't deliver the goods. Essentially, delivering the goods (naked chicks) is about all this movie does well.

The acting is drab—not terrible, but not very interesting. There are no truly interesting characters, the killer included, and the atmosphere is painfully weak. The music is average 70's fare that does a decent job of feeling dated. The film offers little in the way of unique or interesting moments and overall just feels very average. However, the film is inspired (very obviously) on actual events. The place was Chicago, I believe, the 1960's, and the killer was Richard Speck who did kill eight nursing students in a single night in the house/tenement building they all shared (also, I believe, this was lifted as a plot in an episode of CSI as well). So that does add some level of interest to the film. Not really recommended otherwise.

4/10

Memorial Valley Massacre (1988)

Just plain stupid.

[2/10 · 31 May 2008]

***POTENTIAL SPOILERS*** (Not that they'll hurt this trite.) My Mom has a tendency to buy some generally crappy box sets of generally crappy old, forgotten-for-a-reason horror movies that even the most ardent horror fans look at with confusion at the sub-substandard films listed therein. That's where I found this little gem. In a box set I swiped from my Mom. There's a reason some of these movies end up stuffed into half-assed box sets. Let me enlighten you on the many reasons this claptrap ended up stuffed away in a bottom-feeding box set.

First off, wow. Just, wow. The movie starts off right from the gate with crappiness as the opening title is painfully lame. It's a "rustic" ye olde west style font with bright yellow and orange colors and a faked 3-D look. It slides into view from the right of the screen akin to the first PowerPoint presentation of a high school student who just learned how to have a text box slide into view. The film revolves around a national park/campground which, despite being unfinished, is now open for business. Most of this "terrifying" film takes place in daylight, by the way, so picture that atmosphere. Well, there appear to be some omens afoot, all of which appear to look bad, none of which are ever investigated—like the deaths of two dogs, theft from the park manager's office, a window knocked out of a storage shed, stuff like that. All manner of clichéd guests arrive and stay at this campground which, mind you, doesn't even appear to have camping spots fleshed out so that we are met with a montage scene of people haphazardly setting up camp, backing over trees, chopping down other trees (one of which, mind you, falls over below the level at which it was being cut) and stupid stuff like this, all accompanied with dreadfully happy music. Turns out, there's hardly a massacre going on here at all (another one of those old horror films with blatantly misleading titles to draw in an audience), just some stupid mountain wild-man dressed in cliché caveman garb who terrorizes people. By the way, he's also the long-lost son of someone important in the film—a fact which is all-too-easily figured out--so don't try to call me out on that as a spoiler. This film has all the clichés: The old guy who dramatically tells of mysterious backgrounds, the badass biker gang, the slutty chick and obnoxious teenagers, the tough guy connected to the plot twist, and the lone sweet girl who predictably falls for the "handsome" hero guy.

There are some occasionally nice death scenes, but some of them could've used some foreshadowing or additional thought. There's a big trap built by the wild-man just like the one in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (which I've also just recently seen) but some foreshadowing would've been nice to tie to the beginning of the film to the end—just like Gibson did in his film. Here, no such luck. The trap comes out of nowhere and makes little sense compared to extremely simple nature of the wild-man. There is no depth at all and the acting is just plain bad. Boring, mundane, clichéd characters that have little to say that's even remotely interesting or for that matter--plot relevant. Zero atmosphere. Also, I don't think a series of killings done over a few days by a scared/crazy guy trying to (apparently) protect his territory necessarily count as a massacre. Stupid things like the wild-man supposedly starting a tractor and allowing it to run into a building happen that don't make any sense. Hell, several people are killed by simply not walking away from their respective threats! The old man storyteller is set on fire and everyone just watches him run past in flames. No one tries to help him! They just watch him slowly saunter past with "Gosh! Look at that! It's bad!" facial expressions. Aside from a scant few fairly interesting kills and some partial nudity (in a sex scene where you really see nothing), there is no reason at all to watch this film. The base concept behind the story isn't terrible, but since everything else was just done way wrong, there is no redeeming value. Not recommended for anyone.

2/10

Cemetery Man (1994)

More excellent, though bizarre, Italian horror.

[8/10 · 31 May 2008]

***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***

This is a bizarre piece of Italian cinema. For one, it takes place somewhere in England and it is also filmed in English. To that point, one can't really tell that it really is Italian horror, except for that signature Italian "class" that lightly coats the film (like Suspiria or Opera). However, it was directed by an Italian filmmaker, Michele Soavi, who is known to be associated with the likes of Fulci and Argento. It stars Rupert Everett and the super-gorgeous Anna Falchi. And it has zombies. And a love story. And a fat retarded guy.

Rupert Everett is the caretaker of a cemetery and the local mortician. His cemetery has a problem: Corpses tend to return from the dead seven days after dying. So he doesn't get much sleep as he and his bumbling retarded counterpart spend a lot of nights fighting off zombies. Early on, an old geezer dies and his sexy wife (Falchi) attends the funeral where Rupert Everett sees her and falls madly in love with her. Of course, when he finally talks to her and starts having sex with her, her husband returns and bad times are had by all. Believe it or not, a big chunk of this film is Rupert Everett dealing with trying to find love and humorously, he meets three women who all look like his dream goddess (Falchi again), who all in one way or another end up breaking his heart. On top of this, there are countless people dying in this humble burg and a great many zombies to deal with (many are Boy Scouts from a bus crash). Then, as if there wasn't already enough going on, Rupert Everett starts talking to Death and then he goes nuts. This movie is totally packed with weird content! And the best part is: It's all wonderfully entertaining!

The acting is actually done really well,with a good deal of class thrown in. The zombies look decent and are pretty entertaining and Anna Falchi looks hot, on top of which, she is nude for a cemetery sex scene which is very amusing. The film has an artistic flair to it and the atmosphere is actually very appropriate to a horror film, which is a fantastic point since there is so much going on that could have detracted from the atmosphere in a lesser film. The story is the highlight here as it doesn't really have twists and turns so much as it's filled with weirdness and surprises as well as some truly entertaining characters. You can't help but laugh the third time you see Anna Falchi show up as a different character, or when the retarded guy vomits on the mayor's daughter. Overall, it's a charming horror film that never fails to entertain. The weirdness and abstract nature of the film continues to build right to the head-scratching ending. About the only problems with Cemetery Man are that is seems to drag on with no actual ending in sight at a few points (because the story is so weird and the film is roughly two hours long) and there are some truly cheap special effects with "spirits" in the cemetery. They're balls of fire hung on string. And the strings are very visible. Otherwise, it's highly recommended to fans of horror and weirdness.

8/10

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)

Proof God doesn't exist, and if he does, he hates humanity.

[2/10 · 12 July 2007]

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie 1987 PG

I'm sure a lot of us remember the Garbage Pail Kids. Especially us old geezers like me who grew up in the 80's. They were like the grotesque, mutant versions of the cute little Cabbage Patch Kids. Essentially, they were the Cabbage Patch Kids made for boys. Instead of unnervingly cute dolls, they were fun and gross collections of art printed on cards, like baseball cards. Printed by Topps, who made baseball cards. And no, they weren't like those modern Garbage Pail Kids, the ones we had in the 80's were fvcking nasty. Cards laden with feces, vomit, mutilation of others, self-mutilation, gore, violence, and just about the sickest crap you could come up with. That's why they were so great. The recent GPK cards they've made are just plain stupid. Trust me, these new cards are like making a PG-rated Predator film. That's how tame they are compared to the past ones.

Of course, as with anything that's even remotely popular, some genius decides that, hey, there should be a movie to go along with this latest fad. Now, a lot of things that seemed like fads or trends that get turned into movies typically get turned into… crappy movies. And this has to be one of the worst. The rude, crude, vile, disgusting, offensive Garbage Pail Kids are little more than gross misunderstood aliens who… (sigh) live in a garbage can. Believe it or not, the main focus of this film is about a boy trying to impress some shallow skank with, what else, 80's fashion sense. That's right! The Garbage Pail Kids film is about fashionable clothing! Not that any of this stuff is fashionable in the least! In reality, it's disgusting! More disgusting than the pathetically tame Garbage Pail Kids who, and I'm not making this up, actually have a sing-along number wherein they sing about the joys and benefits of teamwork and helping people. And they design "killer 80's clothes!" The film is the very definition of shlock!

Alright, the reason I saw this is because my wife found it in some DVD discount bin (big surprise, I know) for what must have been 27 cents and got it as a stocking-stuffer for my three-year old son last Christmas. This film is so wretchedly bad, it's almost indescribable. The acting is bad, the atmosphere is bad, the special effects are bad, the music is cheesy (bad cheesy), and the story is ludicrous to say the least. The Garbage Pail Kids aren't even gross, offensive, or for that matter, interesting. A lot of one-liners and cheap gags that do nothing but agonize the living. Honestly, what little boy who enjoyed little cards of pudgy little girls bleeding to death and disgusting corpses doing stuff would want to watch a puny little movie about teamwork, loving the ugly, and 80's fashion? If ever there was a film that "missed the point," it was this mess. Only for the cinematic brave, I gave it a two only for the sheer wackiness of it's very existence.

2/10

Lifeform (1996)

Alien rip-off #407573-B

[5/10 · 12 July 2007]

Lifeform (AKA Invader) 1996 R

This film is about a team of scientists and military yahoos that end up fighting an alien creature. It's that simple. It's yet another film like Alien or Leviathan (which itself was a direct rip-off of Alien) or Species. In this one, intelligent life that reproduces asexually sends a Viking probe back from Mars (because Mars is new territory in the world of alien encounters you know), and that probe has been modified to carry this creature along with it. Of course, the alien gets out and gets hunted and gets killed.

Overall, the acting isn't too bad, and the special effects are competent. The alien is intelligent, so of course, the one woman in the film feels sorry for it. The design of the alien itself is kind of like those half-human, half-horse creatures. You know, a centaur. It looks all terrifying on the outside, but then it extends it's little alien body up (the part where the human part of the centaur goes) out of the normal trunk (the part that is the horse), and it looks all benevolent. The military base they're on is rather bland, and of course, Big Brother shows up and spoils the show. The Army folks saunter about trying to kill the alien and they're all afraid it may have some contagion that it's spreading around.

The atmosphere isn't bad, but the film is somewhat shallow—it's just a straight-forward science fiction/horror flick with some decent gore and a humorous kill (guy is stabbed with the blunt end of an M-16). Nothing really special, but nothing really horrible. Recommended to hardcore SF/horror buffs. And that's about it.

5/10

Zombie Nation (2004)

If you pay to see this, you just offended your wallet.

[1/10 · 12 July 2007]

Zombie Nation 2004 R

Hey, I was bored. I looked in my Comcastic little box to find a movie to watch. Zombie Nation? Hey, I love zombie movies. Says the filmmaker has some sort of cult following in the description. Funny how it doesn't warn me not to watch this film. I could've used that advice.

Zombie Nation is just like Troll 2 in that it's completely misnamed. It has little (if anything, depending on your point of view) to do with zombies, and takes place all within one city. This film revolves around a crooked cop, who acts as badly as possible (he has to be trying to suck this much), while he arrests women for trivial bullshit and then kills them. Yup, he's a serial killer cop. Not only is this film flawed in thinking that it's a zombie flick, it also gets its serial killer facts completely wrong. Serial killers enjoy killing, they live for it and they get down and personal with it. This guy knocks out the women, and injects them with some poison. He doesn't even have sex with the corpse or dismember it. Talk about boring! Eventually, one of the whopping five women he kills has Voodoo protection done to her and for no apparent reason, all five come back to life and head off to kill this guy. They were all buried or tossed into the ocean, but you wouldn't know it buy the sharp clean clothes they're all wearing. The women then act very poorly and take their revenge. Oh yay.

This film was crap in every category. Crap acting, crap writing, crappier sets, and crappier make-up effects. The women don't look zombie-like, unless you count really dark make-up around the eyes to be the de facto definition of what makes a zombie. They can all talk, behave, think, and act perfectly human. The gore is weak compared to even many PG-13 films and the nudity is beyond brief. You see glimpse of breasts in the opening sequence... Then the exact same breasts later! Go figure. Guess only one actress was willing to go topless for this trite. The police station is so badly constructed that you can see where they stopped painting the walls of the warehouse they're obviously filming in. You can see the pipes and the bad lighting and the overly sparse set-up and even, unless you are blind, you can see the director failing. Steer clear, it's a waste of time.

1/10

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Weird but well done and interesting.

[8/10 · 31 May 2006]

Slaughterhouse-Five -- Drama/Science Fiction/Fantasy -- 1972

This film is not at all what one might expect in our world where we're familiar with horror and slasher films. It doesn't take place in a slaughterhouse and nor does the number five play a strong part in the story. In reality, "Slaughterhouse Five" is the address in which some American WWII POWs are housed by Nazis under a work program.

But, this is not a World War II film. Not in the least. It's, in the simplest of terms, a film about a man, Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) who is "unstuck in time." Meaning, he's living various moments of his life over and over again, but fairly randomly. They take place in the 70's when he's an older man, with grown up children. They take place during WWII as he's captured by Germans. They take place when he meets his big fat wife who always promises to lose weight--and never does. And at various other moments in his life. Up until we find out why all this is happening.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Very good story. Like the much more recent 21 Grams, we see bits and pieces of the overall story, from different time periods, until we're able to assemble them for ourselves to know what's happening.

--Some excellent cinematography. The film is assembled brilliantly. We have scenes of the protagonist's life bounding back and forth from one era to another, but with actions mirrored from the various times and events.

--Excellent acting over all. Michael Sacks seems a little dry at times, but it seems as though this is a side-product of his being launched back and forth to live and relive moments of his life. That would get pretty dull after a while. Rather than emotionally reliving many of these moments, he views them with wonder, as though looking at them in a different way.

--Generally good writing and dialog.

--Genuinely humorous moments.

--Excellent editing carries along the brilliant cinematography. Those back-and-forth scenes darting from two separate, though similar moments, are really well done.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--This is a weird story when you get right down to it. The ending is very much in the realm of Fantasy/Science Fiction. It's like it was plucked right from the "Twilight Zone."

--Some scenes do not directly involve the hero, which is mildly troubling only that this is supposed to be his life that's being lived and relived--not someone elses. In a sense, it feels that we shouldn't be seeing things that the main character himself couldn't have seen. However, these scenes also add an extra layer of depth to the film so we know what's happening around the main story.

--Relatively light nudity and sexual themes.

--Mild violence, no real gore except for the decayed, crippled and blackened foot of an American soldier--which is actually focused on quite a bit. The blood that we see is an odd color.

--The film focuses fairly heavily on the hero's life in reference to his time in and around WWII.

The Bad:

--While it's similar to 21 Grams in execution, the story in Slaughterhouse-Five itself isn't quite as tight or fulfilling. It more or less just "is." The ending is more philosophical than satisfactory.

--May not be enough of an SF film for Science Fiction fans. But may also be too odd for drama purists.

--The Science Fiction weirdness in the end of the film look pretty decent, but are also dated and do occasionally feel a bit cheesy.

--These flaws may look numerous, but are typically pretty minor.

The Ugly:

--Despite the overall quality, there is still some really awkward and bizarre writing and dialog every now and then. It's stuff you hear where you go, "man, what an odd thing to say. Who talks like that?"

Memorable Scene:

--The wife's psychotically emotional "driving the Caddy to death" scene.

--The Brits greet the Yanks in the German Prison Camp. Wacky.

Acting: 8/10 , Story: 8/10 , Atmosphere: 7/10 , Cinematography: 8/10 , Character Development: 8/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10 , Dialog: 7/10 , Music: 7/10 , Direction: 9/10

Nudity/Sexuality: 4/10 , Violence: 4/10 , Gore: 1/10

Cheesiness: 2/10 , Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 8/10

Overall, and despite the setbacks, I still think this film deserves and "8 out of 10," because of the creativity of the story, the strength of the story, and the high quality of the cinematography and editing to tell the story. This is definitely a movie worth checking out.

www.ResidentHazard.com

http://bartboard.proboards3.com/index.cgi (Movie themed message board)

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Seeing is believing--looks maybe can't kill!

[7/10 · 31 May 2006]

Eyes of Laura Mars -- Horror/Thriller -- 1978

This is an old supernatural thriller of sorts from way back in the 70s'. It revolves around a female fashion/glamour photographer who lives to make crude photographic nudie art that sepcializes in scenes of violence. Some people find her "art" to be rather disturbing and horribly offensive. So someone decides to go around killing her friends and acquaintances. To make matters worse, Laura Mars can see the murders happening--through her own eyes!

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Clever story, and fairly original. Adds a nice twist to the usual cops-hunting-murderer story.

--Good acting all around. Brad Dourif is creepy, Tommy Lee Jones is cool, Raul Julia is... kinda weird...

--Good atmosphere and cinematography all around, with some strong direction. The tense moments are generally pretty well done.

--Some nice, genuine, surprises throughout the film. It does manage to successfully keep you guessing just who the killer is.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Contains a decent amount of fairly well-known actors including Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif (better known as Chucky from the Child's Play series), Raul Julia, and Rene Auberjonois (famous for his Star Trek: Deep Space Nine role). It was also co-written by John "Halloween" Carpenter.

--Quite a bit of nudity. She is taking pictures of naked "victims of violence" after all.

--Somewhat grotesque 70's music permeates here and there.

--Some decent character development and depth.

The Bad:

--Not quite as scary or riveting as I'm sure it was back in '78. This review being written in 2006.

--Some "logic" problems every now and then. For instance, when Laura Mars sees someone being murdered, that's all she sees--yet there are times when she seems to be able to move around, once even driving a car, with more competence than one would expect from someone who just instantly "went blind."

--Occasional dips in the quality of the atmosphere and writing.

The Ugly:

--The make-up used on the models in the 70's. Holy crap!

Memorable Scene:

--Nice climax to the film.

Fun Fact:

--The photographic art in the film is actually from professional "glamour" photographer Helmut Newton.

Acting: 8/10 , Story: 8/10 , Atmosphere: 7/10 , Cinematography: 8/10 , Character Development: 7/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10 , Dialog: 7/10 , Music: 6/10 , Direction: 9/10

Nudity/Sexuality: 5/10 , Violence: 6/10 , Gore: 3/10

Cheesiness: 2/10 , Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 7/10

Finally, I would recommend this to hardcore horror/thriller fans or film buffs. John Carpenter or Tommy Lee Jones fans will likely enjoy it. The movie is not without its problems, small though they are, but may not be enjoyed all that well by many modern viewers.

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Waterworld (1995)

Costner talks little, but swims a lot.

[8/10 · 31 May 2006]

Waterworld -- Science Fiction/Action -- Review

Back when this film was made, it was the most expensive movie ever. It cost over a hundred million bucks to make. Small fries by todays standards, huh? Where Troy cost $200 million for no real apparent reason. CG films don't cost that damn much, and that's mostly what that was. But at the time, it was a big controversy. One could actually see people with the attitude that "if it costs that much, it must really suck." It was also plagued with nasty rumors of going way over-budget, having a lengthy running time (just over two hours), and stories that Kevin Costner was in it. Well, he was, and this was before his reputation was heavily damaged with stuff like "The Postman." He was still riding high on the success of "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."

This film takes place in the distant future, long after we modern humans have totally f*cked up the planet and global warming melted the ice caps and covered the world in a spiffy layer of one giant bottomless ocean. Humanity now lives on boats and floating villages in sparse little populations. Basically, humanity is on it's last legs. Costner is our hero--all action, little talk, gruff and selfish. The bad guys are called "smokers" and they're led by the ever entertaining Dennis Hopper as he uses rhetoric and cigarettes to keep his minions in line. They wander the globe on the crusty Exxon Valez oil tanker, which was apparently repaired just in time for the end of the world. And everyone's after one little girl who has a tattoo on her back leading to mythical "dry land."

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Impressive sets. The floating "city" called the "Atoll" is actually pretty impressive. More impressive yet is the fact that they actually built this thing for the movie and used it as a sort of floating "crew quarters" during filming.

--Good acting all around. The little girl is one of the better child actors I've seen, and her character is portrayed quite realistically. Pretty much all of her actions are what you'd expect from a stubborn little kid.

--Jeanne Tripplehorn's brief nudity!

--Costner doing a lot of his own stunts, thinning hair and all!

--Very nice musical score.

--Tons of action to keep us entertained. Complete with rampant gun violence and explosions.

--Dennis Hopper is extremely entertaining--the majority of the film's best dialog belongs to him.

--Good atmosphere and decent cinematography throughout. A lot of underwater shots, as one would expect. A lot of tracking and action shots as well.

--Interesting story, especially for being released theatrically. These days, this kind of stuff is now relegated to half-assed Sci-Fi Channel films.

--Overall, good special effects and make-up. Costner's gills look good, but his webbed feet not quite as good--but we hardly see them.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Despite the decent acting, the dialog is occasionally somewhat cumbersome and clumbsy. Not nearly as bad as something George Lucas would write, but not exactly perfect.

--Some cheesiness here and there. In the writing, dialog, or characters. Granted, these futuristic humans don't have a whole helluva lot going for them, and a lot of them are getting pretty crazy.

--A few shots containing CG elements which, while they don't look perfect, for some reason, they still look a lot better than some of our modern CG-laden films. *cough*vanhelsing*cough* One involved Costner "fishing" for a large sea creature for dinner, which I actually did not remember being in the film way back from my original viewing.

--Decent compositing work on some underwater scenes. Nice visuals on the now ancient ruined cities beneath the waves.

--Not exactly scientifically accurate about the realities of such a scenario--with the earth flooded over and all. (In reality, the atmosphere would likely be so dense with moisture that breathing would be next to impossible.)

The Bad:

--Costner's ego, while somewhat under control, does creep into the foreground now and then.

--Very cheesy action elements during the film's climax--including a bungee cord.

The Ugly:

--Dennis Hopper's replacement eye!

Memorable Scene:

--Seeing the ruined ancient city underwater. (Note the submarine inside the city.) Thankfully, it's not something cliché like showing us New York City all ruined. That's been done to death in films of this nature. Planet of the Apes, A.I., The Day After Tomorrow...

Fun Fact:

--Waterworld is the only motion picture to have a game licensed on Nintendo's ill-fated Virtual Boy gaming system.

Acting: 8/10 , Story: 9/10 , Atmosphere: 8/10 , Cinematography: 8/10 , Character Development: 8/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 8/10 , Nudity/Sexuality: 2/10 , Violence: 7/10 (quite a bit for a PG-13 film) , Gore: 2/10 (extremely brief) , Dialog: 7/10 , Music: 8/10 , Direction: 9/10

Cheesiness: 3/10 , Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 8/10

Overall, this is a good, solid, movie. A bit formulaic maybe, but then again, what isn't these days? A negative reputation has kept it largely overlooked by most people these days. As a plus, it can be found in Wal-Mart's $5 bin now--and is one of the best deals in there. Also, Kevin Costner. His hit-or-miss career may turn away a lot of people. Trust me when I say that, despite it's box-office "failure," this is one of his better films. Also good: Robin Hood, Open Range, and Dances With Wolves. Recommended mostly to Science Fiction fans.

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Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

SEE! Aliens without elbows! SEE! Sound defeat aliens! SEE! Human lives extinguished!

[5/10 · 2 May 2006]

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Quickie Review

Damn, the fifties was a grand time for movies, wasn't it? Anything seemed possible! And anything was! Screenwriters just didn't know any better! Well, a slight cut above the rest lies Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. No, this movie isn't great—it's clearly not the best of the genre—but it's clearly not the worst, either.

In this film, suddenly, one day, flying saucers show up on earth. The manage to communicate in a most cumbersome manner with a scientist who's busy sending satellites into space. But so far, the aliens have gone and shot all of 'em down. Apparently, despite being vastly superior to us, they still couldn't manage to see that the satellites posed no possible threat to them. Unless studying weather is detrimental to alien health… At any rate, they try talking to the scientist and in classic 50's fashion, the aliens are actually here to invade. Wow. Didn't see that sh*t coming! Well, the scientist figures out how to fight 'em with, of all things, high intensity sound waves… or something.

This film is average at best for the time. It's wildly inferior to some classic 50's SF, like "Them!," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," etc. But superior to shlock like "The Man from Planet X" or "The Giant Claw," and about on par, but better, than "This Island Earth." The UFO's are done by none other than Ray Harryhausen, and they look pretty good. High average for the time, you could say. Decent compositing, but as usual, pretty laughable aliens. Their "space suits" are immensely clunky and dull—I got the feeling that they were a very stagnant dark brown—though the film is black and white. They don't even have elbows! Oddly enough, the aliens themselves, to ruin a surprise, (**HERE'S THE SPOILER**) are pretty close to the standard "grays" that apparently like sodomizing gullible people these days. The writing is passable and occasionally pretty dumb, the atmosphere and cinematography are average for the time. A decent watch for SF fans, but nothing super special. Cool final sequence of flying saucers crashing into buildings.

Nostalgia Score: 7/10, Modern Score: 4/10, Overall: 5/10

(www.ResidentHazard.com)

Runaway (1984)

The Mustache versus the Demon--with robots!!

[5/10 · 2 May 2006]

Runaway, Quickie Review

This thing was written and directed by Michael Crichton, long before he was dishing out cloned dinosaurs and feasible plots. What we have here is a world, apparently the current era (i.e. the mid-80's) wherein, there are robots everywhere that are super helpful to humanity. Just like the apes in one of the Planet of the Apes movies. The robots don't look too bad, thankfully, they aren't androids, so they're a wee bit more believable. They're built to be functional… and cumbersome.

At any rate, Tom Selleck is a cop on the "runaway robot" beat. See, anytime a robot goes haywire, ol' mustache here gets called in to shut it down. Well, pretty soon, it's not about runaway robots, it's about some lunatic (Gene Simmons—no sh*t!) who is developing "evil" chips to go in the robots to turn them into killing machines. And Tom Selleck suddenly finds himself running around trying to find and defeat the Demon from KISS.

Overall, this film isn't too bad. It's cheesy as all hell and rampant with unexplained phenomena. Like Tom Selleck running around doing stuff that doesn't seem to be connected to catching crazy robots. The robots themselves are pretty odd, and only somewhat believable. Maybe if the film took place in the distant future, say, 2010 or something, it'd be a bit easier to swallow. But the robots seem to have massive computing power and skill at a time when they could barely assemble parts of cars—when preprogrammed to do so. The film also has trouble shaking the image of being a somewhat weak "cop drama" kind of film. Gene Simmons is pretty funny, even though I don't think he's supposed to be. The atmosphere is decent and the special effects are entertaining (lots of explosions), and there is brief nudity. Sometimes the acting is a little hard to swallow. Almost like the actors didn't really buy what they were saying or doing, so they just "made the best of it." Not Crichton's best work.

5/10

(www.ResidentHazard.com)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

See how blue our organs are!

[4/10 · 2 May 2006]

Fantastic Voyage, Quickie Review Out of this set of Quickshots, this is arguably the most "classic" film. It's well known, it was creative, it was all fancy-schmancy, it's in color… It was about this guy that's super important and requires an emergency operation—one that can only be accomplished by taking a team of specialists, shrinking them down inside an equally shrunk "submarine" and injecting it into him so they can make a farciful, er, fantastic voyage to the problem in his brain. Wherein they're going to use a snazzy laser to blast away the problem (which is a clot or tumor or something). Well, the film is largely done in "real-time" and follows the crew as they have an hour of misadventure and endless difficulty in finding their way to the brain. Why an hour? Well, after that, they re-big-ulize inside the comatose dude.

Well, I'm sure that for the time, the special effects here were just awesome. But now, by god, they're pretty awful. What we have is a collection of "acid trip" cinematography somewhere cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and a lava lamp. For whatever reason, the inside of the human body is awash with the color blue. And rather than specific terms, an awful lot of stuff is referred to as "corpuscles." Occasionally, the imagery is pretty neat, but a lot of it doesn't make much sense. Apparently, the inside of the human body is filled with some sort of atmosphere somewhere between liquid and gas as our heroes spend a lot of time "swimming" through open areas. Also laughable is the technology on hand. Who knew something as complex as shrinking a bunch of people down to travel inside the human body could be done without a drop of actual technology? Instead of futuristic TV/Computer screens, we have mirrored reflectors a la an overhead projector in a high school. The best we have is "extremely futuristic" black and white images which make up the maps of the human body with a little light in the background showing, apparently, the position of the craft. Needless to say, time has not been kind to this film. The writing is occasionally nerve-rackingly inane and the atmosphere is painfully light. To top it all off, the film kind of drags and it occasionally pretty dull. To add insult to injury, Raquel Welch never really wears anything revealing or body-hugging! For SF purists or film buffs only.

Nostalgia Score: 7/10, Modern Score: 2/10, Overall: 4/10 (www.ResidentHazard.com)

Alien Intruder (1993 Video)

Like a lost Star Trek:TNG fanscript...

[5/10 · 25 April 2006]

I swear. This movie has got to be a rejected fan script for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Seriously. It's about a ship of fools captained by Lando Calrissian himself, Billy Dee Williams with four prison inmates (brought along to make up the crew) and an android who meander into a "forbidden zone" to "rescue a lost ship." Actually, Billy Dee Calrissian just wants to meet back up with a sexy alien babe and is dragging these clods along as an expendable crew.

Okay, here's where it's all Star Trekky: After five days of work (as in, on the weekends), the four crewmates (the former convicts) all get to relax in wacky Virtual Reality worlds where they get to bang the chick of their choice the whole time. Yeah, like on the Enterprise, but where the intention is to "get some." Instead of a "holodeck," though, these idiots just lay in beds and basically "dream" into their VR worlds. One guy is a 50's biker bad*ss, one guy is in the "ye olde west," one guy is in a 1940's-like Noir deal (in black and white no less) and the last guy spends his "VR weekends" on a beach in a luxury house ignoring his cyber-babe so he can jog or lift weights. One of the inmates on this trip is an explosives expert who was only apparently brought along to be the tough-guy explosives expert. Eventually, the sexy alien chick shows up in everyone's cyber-realities and kills off all their beloved fake babes. Then she gets all lusty and turns all the guys against each other. The android? We get to see him stand silently, walk silently, and die quietly. Other than that, you've got the smart and attractive inmate, the smart nerd inmate, the long-haired inmate, and of course, the big tough explosives loser.

Now, this alien babe doesn't make much sense. She's either real or digital or a magician or something as she just jumps from one place to the next convincing the men to shoot at each other. I think she's just poorly written. Easy as that. The acting is average at best for an underground film of this nature from the early 90's, and the special effects are truly laughable. However, the "fantasy VR worlds" are done in almost top-notch form. What the f*ck? I mean, the freakin' spaceships look dreadful! There's no class, no style, no personality! Their movement in space is more sterile and emotionless than the Enterprise sleeking across the screen in front of another phosphorus red planet in the 1960's Star Trek! All in all, it's actually pretty stupid, but watchable. Kinda like Maximum Overdrive, or The Wraith. Stupid, but entertaining. Some decent nudity.

5/10

The Hidden II (1993)

Watch an alien procrastinate for an hour and a half.

[4/10 · 25 April 2006]

The Hidden II, Science Fiction Horror

The Hidden 2 picks up right where the first left off--and quickly disintegrates into a much worse movie. This film follows a "chunk" of the original bad-ass alien as it infests a dog, then spawns several other tiny evil alien, um, larva. Well, eventually, someone is infested again and the reign of violence almost starts again. I say almost because the alien spends most of his time screwing around accomplishing nothing. Much like the heroes--who are completely forgettable while they forge an awkward love affair and make repeatedly poor decisions hunting the "evil" aliens.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Well, more shots of the alien and gore than the first film.

--Slightly better atmosphere than Hidden 1.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The acting is nothing special, but it doesn't hurt the film too badly.

--Passable music and cinematography.

--Extensive yammering which attempts to explain every little detail about the aliens.

The Bad:

--Very little chemistry between our heroes.

--Main hero guy is pretty nerdy.

--Sure, the alien is shown more, but for f*ck sakes! The special effects should have improved in quality! They still feel like they're mid-80's puppets, here. We have a six-legged alien "thing" that we get to see moving around and what does it look like? A shaved, partially mutilated dead rat in rigor mortis. The legs barely move!

--Insipid love story.

--Clumsey, infantile hero.

--The evil alien spends very little time doing anything. Mostly walking around talking like an idiot.

The Ugly:

--Several story problems--for one: There are several evil alien larva sitting unprotected which are just not killed--they're deliberately ignored or the search for them is just done immensely poorly. This alien good guy travelled all through space to do a half-assed job, did he? Well, that's what he's doing. It'll take literally a minute or two to kill the remaining sleeping larva after he kills just one. So what does he do? "I'm tired, let's go," basically. And he leaves! Three times he does this! This is the most procrastinating alien I've ever seen!

--Most of the "we're lovers now" dialog.

--At least 2 sex scenes with zero nudity. An R-rated horror film with sex and no nudity? What the hell?

Memorable Scene:

--Seeing the credits start.

Acting: 5/10 , Story: 6/10 , Atmosphere: 7/10 , Cinematography: 5/10 , Character Development: 4/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 6/10 , Nudity/Sexuality: 1/10 , Violence/Gore: 6/10 (less violence, more gore than the first film) , Sets/Backgrounds: 4/10 , Dialogue: 5/10 , Music: 6/10 , Writing: 3/10 , Direction: 3/10

Cheesiness: 6/10 , Crappiness: 5/10

Overall: 4/10

Well, there you have it. The first Hidden is a pretty good film, just light on the gore and a pretty weak overall atmosphere. This one, however, is weak in everything except atmosphere and gore--and those are only slightly better. If you can get the first movie alone, go for it. Classic 80's science fiction horror--with a touch of cop drama. The second is forgettable--best to just avoid this one.

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The Hidden (1987)

Classic 80's Action-SF-Horror... now with Power Metal!!

[8/10 · 25 April 2006]

The Hidden, Science Fiction Horror/Cop Drama

The Hidden is a horror film about an alien "criminal" that has ended up on earth running around a major city. The alien loves violence, crime, and apparently, cheesy 80's Power Metal. What a guy! But there's a catch! The alien hides inside the bodies of people--so you never know who he's gonna be! To make things fun, the ever-placid Kyle MacLachlan plays the other alien--the one hunting the criminal alien. He's teamed up with a street-tough cop who spends a lot of time thinking that the FBI agent-alien (MacLachlan) is merely some sort of lunatic.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Good acting and an interesting story, even if it was made to bring in the big bucks--violence, fast cars, cheesy Metal--these are just some of the cliché's of the 80's--and the movie is chock full of them.

--Fairly realistic in it's execution, it's believable despite the cheesiness. The cop, Michael Nouri, behaves like one would expect.

--MacLachlan and Michael Nouri make a good team--Nouri is the perfect counter for MacLachlan's generally stale demeanour--This is the only way I've ever seen this guy in movies!

--Rampant gun violence!

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The atmosphere is somewhat weak--almost the entire movie takes place in daylight.

--Aside from the constant screeching Power Metal, the rest of the music is alright.

--Car chases--love 'em or hate 'em--here they are--but at least with cool cars.

--Decent cinematography.

--Pretty good special effects when we see them.

The Bad:

--I personally would've loved to see the alien a little more. But it's "hidden," so nuts to that.

--Some dialogue.

The Ugly:

--When we see what the good-guy alien looks like. Oooo! A creature made of light particles!!

Memorable Scene:

--The film's nice climax.

Acting: 8/10 , Story: 8/10 , Atmosphere: 5/10 , Cinematography: 6/10 , Character Development: 8/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10 , Nudity/Sexuality: 1/10 , Violence/Gore: 8/10 (lots of violence) , Sets/Backgrounds: 7/10 , Dialogue: 8/10 , Music: 7/10 , Writing: 8/10 , Direction: 8/10 ,

Cheesiness: 3/10 , Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 8/10

Well, there you have it. The Hidden is a pretty good film, just light on the gore and a pretty weak overall atmosphere. If you can get the first movie alone, go for it. Classic 80's science fiction horror--with a touch of cop drama.

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Commie paranoia makes more 50's SF goodness...

[9/10 · 25 April 2006]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Science Fiction Thriller

I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not (I'm kidding, I know I've mentioned it plenty), but I really love movies about paranoia. And since I was raised on a near-steady stream of 50's Horror and Science Fiction, I'd have to say I've seen a good number of paranoia films. As we all know, or anyone who loves movies knows, the 50's was rife with extreme paranoia and crazy Science Fiction films--all of them burying the fear of Communism or nuclear war heavily into their scripts. Take a film like this one, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, dice into it a thick paranoid atmosphere, and place it smack dab into Cold War paranoid 1950's America and you can easily see why this film was so instantly famous.

This is one of Science Fiction's all-time classic films. People suddenly aren't who they seem. Their character and nature, their freedom and humanity--poof! Gone! All that remains is an identical, though emotionless, freedomless human-like shell, now inhabited by something other-worldly. And all because they fell asleep. What's worse is, suddenly, these inhuman humans seem to be popping up everywhere. Finally, our heroes are left fleeing for their lives, with no where to run, and no one to trust.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--This film might have been moderately successful for it's story alone in the fifties--what with the paranoia and fear and all--but what really makes it shine is the immensely thick atmosphere. Suddenly, you don't just witness the paranoia--you live it.

--Helping along that excellent atmosphere is some dazzling cinematography. Sharp angles and even sharper lighting and shadows, it's edgy, tense, and gritty all at the same time. Very clear picture, not grainy or muddy.

--Above average acting for the time, and excellent for a B-movie, which is what this was originally intended to be.

--Tons of suspense, but this is a movie that builds tension and fear and compounds it with rampant paranoia, so it better have some great suspense.

--The story builds quite well. Very nice pacing.

--Nice sets and backgrounds.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The music, thought dated, is still quite good. It's one of those key elements so necessary in a film of this nature to keep the suspense high.

--Above average special effects for the time. Though, really rather brief. This film didn't have a huge budget, nor did it depend on spiffy special effects. In the long term, this has probably actually helped out the film's notoriety. Without gratuitous dated special effects to hold it back, the film was allowed to age gracefully aided by the story and atmosphere.

--No nudity or gore. This is the 50's, man! Just good clean fun delivered in a scary package of total fear!

--Decent, above-average dialog for the time and style.

The Bad:

--The underlying "paranoia of Communism" theme, and the film's full impact, is likely to be lost on many modern viewers. Which is really unfortunate. Know your history, then watch this movie.

--Almost no character development. But then again, this movie is about people losing all their character and humanity, so...

The Ugly:

--The story might be seen as being unintentionally humorous by some of today's viewers. However, this relates to the film's actual impact. "Beware the pods!!"

--Scenes in moving cars--that background sure is whipping by!!

Memorable Scene:

--Seeing the people move en masse into the street for a single purpose.

Fun Facts:

--Originally had a much, much darker ending. One that reeked of hopelessness, doom, and failure. But those lousy film executives just had to go and ruin it and return some bit of hope to the human race!

--Remade in 1978 and again in 1993.

--Our hero in the '56 version has a cameo in roughly the same role in the 1978 version.

Acting: 9/10 , Story: 10/10 , Atmosphere: 10/10 , Cinematography: 10/10 , Character Development: 7/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10 , Nudity/Sexuality: 0/10 , Violence: 5/10 (just some fighting, but that's not the point of this film) , Gore: 0/10 , Dialog: 8/10 , Music: 8/10 , Direction: 10/10

Cheesiness: 3/10 , Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 9/10

If you're a Science Fiction fan, or paranoia-horror fan, you simply have to include this in your viewing. It's as necessary as viewing Jaws, or Psycho, or Night of the Living Dead. You can't be a fan of Science Fiction/Horror without seeing it. All the better if you're a fan of paranoia flicks like John Carpenter's remake of The Thing or the SF film The Puppetmasters (not the Full Moon movies about killer dolls). Also one for classic and general "hardcore" film buffs. Highly recommended.

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Constantine (2005)

Keanu Reeves farts a stinker on the Bible.

[5/10 · 25 April 2006]

Constantine, Action-Horror

Whoa.

Look at all the demons. I guess... Constantine. Been there, done that, but generally better than this.

Constantine follows Keanu Reeves as Jon Constantine as he once again attempts acting. This time, Reeves plays the savior of humanity fighting off demons who are trying to get into the world. With the plot revolving around... well, many of the same ideas we've seen before. Prophecy, End of Days, even Dogma all had similar stories to this. So let's get on with the specifics.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Demons versus angels in a battle for earth. Fun stuff.

--Decent amount of demons shown off.

--Hell looks pretty cool.

--Lots of violence, lots of action.

--Excellent cinematography. A lot of flair.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Constantine is just like the savior in other films of this nature--one way or another, they all have the special necessary gift required to save humanity from demonic/angelic invasion. His is that he can see demons and angels and knows all the right people to help him fight them. Also, he has the typical "just now fell into this ordeal" sidekick in Rachel Weisz. So it's getting to be a tad cliché around here.

--Decent music, a bit better than I was expecting.

--Very little cursing, no nudity.

--Somewhat average gore, but all of it pretty heavily CG.

The Bad:

--Keanu Reeves. His, "I'm the ultra-cool egomaniacal badass" meandering acting is once again a downside. Cliché to the max, if you will. He's as hard to take as ever. Seriously, why does this guy keep getting work?

--Some very cliché moments and predictability. For instance, Keanu Reeves' smoking is killing him, but of course, he's too much of a badass to quit, until the inevitable moment of inspiration when he finally finds reason to quit smoking and to quit being the selfish badass. Which, of course, happens to coincide with the film's climax.

--Wildly overabundant CG. Every single demon, no matter the capacity, is done with computer graphics.

--Ridiculous over-use of CG-assisted blurring and distorting of backgrounds and visuals to make "transitional" effects.

--Awkward pacing and a lack of character development.

--Some excessively cheesy dialog.

The Ugly:

--"Been there, done that" story.

--Again, Keanu Reeves. Trying to act.

--The film seems to be flashy for the sake of flashiness. As in, things were done for the "oh wow" factor rather than to benefit the story or create intensity.

Memorable Scene:

--Keanu Reeves flipping off Lucifer. Because it was f*cking stupid!

Acting: 4/10 , Story: 6/10 , Atmosphere: 7/10 , Cinematography: 8/10 , Character Development: 5/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 6/10 , Nudity/Sexuality: 0/10 , Violence: 7/10 , Gore: 6/10 , Dialog: 5/10 , Music: 7/10 , Direction: 5/10

Cheesiness: 5/10 , Crappiness: 3/10

Overall: 5/10

So, this film is really nothing too special. It's a decent romp, but Keanu Reeves and the dialog are really holding it back. More so than even those overly CG special effects. If you simply can't get enough Keanu or Biblical-Demon/Angel-Apocalypse movies, then you may get a kick out of it. For the average movie-goer, it falls short of being anything really memorable.

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Donnie Brasco (1997)

See Johnny Depp be Italian!

[9/10 · 25 April 2006]

Donnie Brasco, Mob/Cop-Drama

In Johnny Depp's versatile repertoire, this stands as his Mobster movie. And like everything else he's done, it's done almost perfectly.

Donnie Brasco is based on a true story of an undercover FBI agent to who goes uncommonly deep into mafia circles to, of course, gather evidence of wrongdoings of in the world of organized crime. The film co-stars Al Pacino and Michael Madsen as mobsters who take a liking to Depp's Brasco, and eventually lead him deeper into mafia circles, doings, and evils. Anne Heche plays Depp's relatively angry wife.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Obviously, as any film with Johnny Depp, the acting is very good. Pacino and Madsen roll along as convincing as ever in their roles as mobsters. Like they were born to play only these kind of parts.

--Excellent cinematography and very nice atmosphere.

--The brief gore we have is fantastic.

--A lot of snazzy rules discussed in detail about the underworld of Italian mobsters and their lingo.

--Excellent costumes. The story takes place in the late 70's, and the wardrobe and scenery is quite accurate.

--Giant 70's Cadillacs. What's not to like about that?

--Brilliant character depth and development, especially from Depp and Pacino's characters.

--Nice action sequences.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The music, aside from the Disco, is quite good.

--Occasionally, the pacing of the story seems a bit odd. This doesn't hurt the film, and won't be obvious to everyone, but to me, there seemed to be some "off" moments.

--Over two hours running time.

--Anne Heche must be going through menopause or something. One second she's happy, the next she's crazy, the next she's p*ssed off. Her acting was quite good, but her character was occasionally annoying. It worked to emphasize the growing problems in her relationship as Depp's wife.

The Bad:

--For some people, the pacing and length will be a turn-off. Some may become gradually disinterested in the film as it progresses.

--Aside from that, there isn't a whole lot to dislike here.

The Ugly:

--Tons of Disco! Once again, what the hell was wrong with people in the 70's??

Memorable Scene:

--Hard to pick just one. I'll go with any time Depp's character slips over that line between undercover FBI agent and Mobster. For instance in the Japanese restaurant.

Acting: 9/10 , Story: 9/10 , Atmosphere: 8/10 , Cinematography: 9/10 , Character Development: 10/10 , Special Effects/Make-up: 9/10 (very minor, but good) , Nudity/Sexuality: 2/10 (brief breast shots only) , Violence: 6/10 (relatively brief, but very entertaining) , Gore: 1/10 (extremely brief, good quality) , Dialog: 9/10 (fagghettaboutit) , Music: 7/10 , Direction: 9/10

Cheesiness: 1/10 , Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 9/10

Overall, I'd have to recommend this, especially to Johnny Depp fans, and fans of Mafia/Mobster movies. I enjoyed it and found it very entertaining.

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Damnation Alley (1977)

Every shot a continuity error!

[3/10 · 25 April 2006]

Damnation Alley, 1977

This film follows some would-be heroes as they survive a nuclear holocaust in 1970's America. It starts out at a protected military base that burns down for the stupidest of reasons—a cigar falls on a Playboy magazine and just happens to be too close to explosive tanks! Then some military guys trek out across the desert landscape that was once America in gigantic armored motor-homes of some sort.

Along their way to, um, Albany in New York (which they believe apparently survived the nuclear holocaust unscathed), they cross vast expanses of listless desert and, an abandoned city filled with killer cockroaches, and some rednecks. Each and every shot reeks of continuity issues with bizarrely coated hues which carry little or no explanation. One shot will be all blue-ish, the next, coated in ugly green hues, the next two will be fine, but different contrasts of light and dark, then the next one will be a hue of green with really queer "lightning" in the sky. The whole movie is like this. I mean, this was the best they could do for the post-apocalyptic radiated earth? It's so f*cking ugly! And after a while, on a big enough screen this can get really irritating on the eyes! It also has some needlessly giant scorpions what are spliced into the film in the most obvious possible way. They're purple for no reason.

****SPOILER WARNING SECTION**** Eventually, the token black guy is eaten by cockroaches, the rednecks are blown up, a little kid and a woman are found separately, one of the RV's is destroyed, and they find Albany (or something) which not only survived the unexplained nuclear holocaust, but reverted to the perfection of Leave it to Beaver's America. Overall, fairly insipid, and occasionally boring.

3/10

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Ghost in the Machine (1993)

Like Lawnmowerman 2--but crappy!

[2/10 · 25 April 2006]

Ghost in the Machine, 1993 Imagine if you took Lawnmowerman 2 and made a crappy version, then splice it with a lame serial killer thriller. Wait, you think Lawnmowerman 2 is already a crappy movie? Boy, are you in for a treat. This is actually worse.

This monstrosity revolves around a serial killer who's known as the "Address Book Killer." See, he steals an address book, then goes and kills everybody in it. No sh*t. And yet, his kill count isn't even up to 20… Kinda makes you wonder about the lifeless shut-ins he's stealing these things from. At any rate, on he's also a tech whiz because that apparently makes perfect sense (to the filmmakers at least) when he's rocketed into being a creature made entirely out of electrical current. Oh yeah, that's right. Just like in Lawnmowerman 2, this guy is reduced to being electrical impulses who kills people via their various electronics devices. Except here, he enters the electrical world by being, apparently, swallowed up by an X-Ray machine in a hospital during a thunderstorm. So, anyway, he starts stalking this woman and her kid and her address book inhabitants in bizarre and nonsensical ways. He shows up to terrorize the kid while he's playing a Virtual Reality video game. For no reason whatsoever, the kid's face appears on his VR counterpart, and while there aren't details of any sort in the images or game, somehow the ability to blast off an arm exists. Trust me when I say that VR games from circa 1993 were no where near this accurate. Actually, they also really lacked anything even remotely fun. Eventually, the kid and his Mom and some computer hacker genius (not kidding) pull the super-electro-killer out of the world of copper cables and into our world. He looks like a Jobe from the first Lawnmowerman in one of his all-CG forms… That is, if he was crappily crafted and animated by a blind man in a high school equipment closet. Of course, bullets don't hurt him, but magnets sure f*ck him up.

This film really has no good merits, pretty much at all. Not since the ridiculousness of Wes Craven's "Shocker" has the world of science and technology been so thoroughly eviscerated and replaced by malevolent ignorance and fantasy. And this makes "Shocker" look competent. The endless early 90's Rap music doesn't help things, either. Of course, the inept script and mindless direction aside, the film also suffers with room-temperature acting, substandard atmosphere, and near endless stupidity. The violence and gore are decent enough. But, it's best to just avoid this one.

2/10

Elephant (2003)

Swing and a miss!

[4/10 · 27 March 2006]

Elephant Review

Capitalizing on the wealth of American teenagers gunning each other down in school is the movie Elephant. Throughout then entire movie, I never once figured out exactly where the hell that name came from, but it's there and so be it.

Elephant is a story which revolves around a high school wherein two students take the initiative to purchase guns and have at their fellow classmates. That's really about it. Not much else happens the whole time.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Pretty often, the acting and dialog is about what one expects from singluarly minded high school students. Banter about how someone's parents are "bitches," or ridiculing the frumpy girl, or talking about shopping. What have you. So, the teenagers are pretty believable.

--Interesting idea, and mind you, fairly daring.

--Chock this one up high on the scale of "let's make an arty film." It is pretty artsy, but while that does give the film some appeal, it doesn't save the damn thing.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Decent atmosphere.

--Decent suspense at times.

--Generally decent cinematography.

The Bad:

--Interesting idea? Poor execution. Here's why:

--In a movie that tackles students gunning each other down, character development is a high priority. Well, you'd think so wouldn't you? Well, the filmmakers pretty much glazed over that here. We're introduced to about a dozen characters, and we never really get to know any of them. Even the roles they play in the school shooting are often ignored. One, the token black kid, is actually gunned down mere moments after we learn his name. So what then is the point?

--Wildly vague in telling us how and why the two gunners do what they do. We see one playing Beethoven (that song is easily the best part of the film, Moonlight Sonata) and we see one playing what appears to be the most absurd and pointless video game on the planet. Oh, and they're gay for each other. That's about all the depth we have with them. And while that's more than any of the other characters, it's still not enough. The movie "Bully," which I consider to be largely a waste of time, did manage to stick more depth into the characters than this film.

--The absurdity of the video game: He walks around. He shoots people. In a plain white/light grey arena with no boundaries or walls and the victims spawn randomly. Personally, I'm really fed up with this idea that violent video games (many of which I quite enjoy) are just "walk and gun" kinds of sh*t. That's boring. Incredibly boring. Grand Theft Auto and Mortal Kombat are two of the most controversial games in history due to their rampant violence, but there's an immense wealth of depth buried in those games besides just killing people. No kid will ever play a video game, regardless of the violence, if it's as boring as watching sh*t dry in an open field.

--During the fires the antagonists set and the gun play, the "panic" from the other students is pathetically minimal. There's simply no tension during these scenes. The black kid walks around as though he's king of the damn school and shows no fear at all, including when he's shot.

--Some confusing continuity moments.

--Extensive focus on some rather unimportant characters and shots.

--Some room-temperature acting abilities.

--Very little actual story and really no plot at all. Just a series of events prior to a bunch of shooting.

The Ugly:

--Endless amount of time spent just following kids as they walk the halls going from one place to another. It did help slightly in conveying the story and continuity points in the fact that the first half of the film was edited in the "random shots from all three acts spliced together randomly" style that we had in "21 Grams." But there's so much time spent just watching kids walking the halls, that the movie is really a short film stretched out to feature-length proportions. Very boring throughout.

--Very simply, and yes, I am saying this again: Not enough character development or depth.

Memorable Scene:

--The "valley girls" bathroom scene after they eat their lunch consisting of several ounces of lettuce.

Acting: 7/10 Story: 5/10 Atmosphere: 8/10 Cinematography: 8/10 Character Development: 2/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 6/10 (just bullet-hits) Nudity/Sexuality: 2/10 (just mild sexuality) Violence: 4/10 Gore: 1/10 (just blood) Dialog: 7/10 Music: 2/10 (Only Moonlight Sonata was really good) Direction: 2/10

Cheesiness: 3/10 Crappiness: 6/10

Overall: 4/10

Overall, a pretty disappointing piece. Almost no character development, and a lot of boring moments. Nice, daring idea--but one that fell well short of what it could've been.

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The Rat Pack (1998 TV Movie)

More fun than a barrel of Kennedys...

[8/10 · 27 March 2006]

The Rat Pack Review

As my wife is a Sinatra fan, it was only a matter of time before I ended up seeing this. And since it was somehow only $4 at Wal-Mart, you can bet that matter of time just happened. Ray Liotta, Don Cheadle, and Joe Mantenga star in this film, portraying their counterparts (Sinatra, Davis Jr., & Dean Martin respectively) rather convincingly.

This film is not so much about the Rat Pack as it is about Sinatra and the help he offered to get John F. Kennedy elected as President of the United States. JFK is portrayed by none other than Gil Grissom from CSI. At any rate, the rest of the Rat Pack is only lightly touched upon as Sinatra is followed around almost constantly. But then, what do you expect? He practically owned the other guys.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--The acting is superb, Liotta is a mind-blowingly convincing Sinatra.

--Good story and nice focus on character development.

--Based on actual events, always makes for a good movie. Complex story.

--For a lot of people, this music will be right up their alley. Not my taste, personally, but not bad stuff. If you like it, you'll love it here.

--Generally good cinematography and atmosphere.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The music appears to be lip-synched from actual performers rather than our actors. I haven't yet double-checked whether or not this is so, but it didn't hurt anything.

--Only mild violence, mostly culled from Sinatra's attitude.

--A lot of focus on Sinatra helping get Kennedy elected and the consequences of his doing so in his life and in relation to the attack against Mobsters.

--The opening seemed a little needless, and the conclusion never again revisited it.

The Bad:

--A bit too much character development just on Sinatra, quite a bit on his relationships that get him involved with the Kennedy's, and some focus on Sammy Davis, Jr. Everyone else, however, is hardly touched upon. Might as well have been titled the "Sinatra Pack." And yes, I am aware of how big a role he played in everything, I just think we could've gotten to know the other guys a bit more.

--With all the women out there that can so perfectly reflect Marilyn Monroe, why did they settle with the woman they picked here?? She's about the only real disappointment.

The Ugly:

--One would be quite surprised at the level of racism Sammy Davis Jr. had to endure for his position.

Memorable Scene:

--Whenever you see those less-than-respectable bits of JFK. No wonder he was on his way to impeachment before his assassination.

--When Nixon was referred to as "Hip."

Fun Fact:

--Don Cheadle stars in this as Sammy Davis Jr. who eventually stars in "Ocean's 11." Don Cheadle also had a role in the remake of "Ocean's 11."

Acting: 9/10 Story: 8/10 Atmosphere: 8/10 Cinematography: 8/10 Character Development: 8/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 0/10 Nudity/Sexuality: 3/10 Violence: 3/10 Gore: 0/10 Dialog: 9/10 Music: 9/10 (The Rat Pack's tunes, mostly) Direction: 9/10

Cheesiness: 1/10 Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 8/10

Overall, this is a pretty solid film, but not without it's missteps. It has a pretty wide-ranging story set in the late 50's and 1960 mostly. A decent drama for the rest of us, helped along by its factual history, and a piece any Sinatra fan will likely love to have. Recommended.

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The Great Raid (2005)

Another true story WWII film with Joseph Fiennes!

[9/10 · 27 March 2006]

The Great Raid Review

With my near constant-watching of the History Channel and ever-increasing love of World War II movies, I might just as well become a WWII History buff. This film is hailed as the best war movie since Saving Private Ryan. Clearly, whoever said that had forgotten about Germany's visually powerful, and very striking, "Downfall" chronicling the last days of WWII through the eyes of the ever-dying Nazi party, with special emphasis on Hitler himself. Like "Windtalkers," this film follows the exploits of the Americans in WWII on the Pacific, rather than European, front. And, like "Enemy at the Gates," this one also follows a true story, albeit, quite likely with a higher degree of accuracy.

Here, we follow the true story of the surviving American POW's dramatic rescue from a Japanese internment camp. These were the men who were "forgotten" in the Philipenes by the United States to focus on the European front and dethroning Hitler. The captured POW's endured near endless torture and starvation, and were the surviving members of those that died on the infamous Bataan Death March. The story chronicles the extreme bravery of a paltry few men (fewer, I believe, than 200) who journey 30 miles into Japanese-held territory to rescue their fellow soldiers. Why? Because they believed (with good reason) that when the Americans began their advance to the Japanese mainland, all those men would be slaughtered.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--The acting is generally quite good as is the detail of the scenery we have. We get to know the characters pretty well.

--Excellent cinematography and visuals. We only have a single opening sequence that gives off a feeling of being animated with computer graphics.

--Most of this two hour movie is build-up to the final confrontation, like many films. And that final confrontation is a whopper of a show.

--Plenty of violence for war film enthusiasts.

--Generally good dialog and writing.

--Excellent music, however, it felt at times like the music was a throw-back to the way soundtracks for these kind of films sounded in the 50's.

--Excellent tense moments and some genuinely tough imagery, namely, a cold execution of some soldiers.

--The film is bookended with footage from the war and narrated to fill us in on everything.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--Unfortunately, despite the massive amount of violence—mostly dominating the final act--the film is too bloodless. "Saving Private Ryan" gave us shocking scenes of blood, violence, and gore—and it really hammered home the terror and insanity of war. After that, this movie does come off as being a little tame for a war film.

The Bad:

--Some occasionally cheesy, cliché moments, unfortunately. They didn't especially hurt the film, but they made the first, say, half an hour a little rough.

--Not as emotionally powerful as "Saving Private Ryan," "Downfall," or "Schindler's List."

The Ugly:

--Does there have to be someone named "Jimmy" in every single WWII movie??

Memorable Scene:

--The attack on the camp.

A Note About the DVD:

--The DVD has an interactive timeline of the events of WWII which goes as far as to detail souring relations between Japan and the US prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, straight through to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the war's wrap-up afterwards. Very nice.

Acting: 8/10 Story: 10/10 Atmosphere: 9/10 Cinematography: 10/10 Character Development: 8/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 9/10 Nudity/Sexuality: 1/10 (brief dialog) Violence: 9/10 (not exactly tons of violence, but exceptionally well done) Gore: 3/10 (just blood) Dialog: 7/10 Music: 9/10 Direction: 9/10

Cheesiness: 3/10 Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 9/10

So, then, where does it stand in the annals of WWII films? For me, it's not as powerful as "Saving Private Ryan," "Schindler's List," or "Downfall." It's on about the same level as "Enemy at the Gates," but more exciting (Joseph Fiennes stars in both of these). It's a superior film to "Windtalkers," which I felt had some problems in the writing and the imagery wasn't gritty enough. It's a great film for War Movie buffs, especially WWII buffs. Recommended.

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